Digital transformation (DX) is an important step in a company's ability to stay competitive in today’s evolving business landscape. But what exactly is digital transformation?

Some people think digital transformation is providing the newest and most relevant technologies to their employees in order to increase productivity levels. While digital technology is a major part of digital transformation, the concept itself is more complex.​

What is Digital Transformation?

Digital transformation has been defined as a “rethinking of how an organization uses technology, people, and processes to radically change business performance.” It is first about transforming your organizational decision making and then supporting that change with technological advancements. ​​

By embracing a new way of thinking and transforming legacy business processes, organizations can work in a more agile way and scale their business to become more competitive.​

Technology Supports Overall DX Strategy

Digital technologies play an integral role in helping organizations transform these processes. However, IDC reminds us that digital technologies, such as cloud, mobility, and big data analytics, are not to be confused with digital transformation.

Simply providing your workers with new technology will not digitally transform your business. Your digital technologies must support your overall business objectives and compliment the transformation goals you are working towards.​

Digital technologies allow organizations to easily adapt business processes and drive higher levels of innovation. For business leaders looking to kickstart organizational digital transformation, it’s important to focus on what isn’t changingto help speed adoption and decrease the friction of change.

Let a Work Execution Platform Be Your Backbone

Digital technologies help an organization take the next step in their transformation processes by automating processes so information workers can focus on more important, high-level tasks. IDC reports that “work execution software is an integral component of a DX strategy that improves the way people work.” A work execution platform, like Smartsheet, enables workers to plan, capture, manage, automate, and report on their work in new flexible and adaptable ways.​

If you’re a business leader thinking about deploying a work execution platform, start your evaluation by considering these key platform capabilities:

Intuitive to use and simple to adopt

Flexible and adaptable

Configurable for multiple use cases and business processes

Facilitates frictionless sharing, both within an organization and with external stakeholders

Provides enterprise-grade security and control

Easy to integrate with other enterprise applications

It’s important for leaders to take the time to understand what their digital transformation goals are and ensure the technologies they implement compliment and enhance how their employees work. From there, they can leverage these technologies to transform their business for the digital era.

Download the full market research study from IDC to learn how the most successful companies are managing their digital transformation, managing the associated change, and overcoming barriers to adoption.